We exclusively spoke to a Fort Myers man who lost his leg after contracting a flesh eating bacteria.

Zach Mody ended up in the hospital after being in the water at Fort Myers Beach just south of the pier. Recent water tests came back negative for any dangerous levels of bacteria.

"I would have never thought in a million years this would have happened to me," Mody said.

Zach Mody is lucky to be alive.

He spoke from his hospital bed at Health Park Hospital.

"The water had just splashed over my foot and I didn't think anything about it," Mody said.

The first symptoms flared up right after he went into the Gulf with a minor cut on his toe about a month ago.

"I noticed my foot was a little irritated and it just had a little red spot on it," Mody said.

But just 12 hours later, the pain became so unbearable.

He checked himself into the hospital. "By the time that I got from downstairs to the operating room, there were these big giant blood blisters on my foot," Mody said.

The infection was quickly spreading up his leg.

"It's really a surgical emergency. They need to get in and do a fasciotomy and clean out the fascial plane and maybe even amputation," Brian Brown, a physician assistant said.

After seven surgeries, doctors amputated Mody's leg.

Now this master carpenter and avid motor cycle rider will need to find a new profession and a new hobby.

Most of us have been told that swimming in the ocean will help heal a sore or cut.

But doctors say there's more than just salt in the water, like bacteria, it can be deadly.

Health experts caution people with open wounds to think twice about going in the water.

A few steps in the Gulf were enough to change Mody's life. "This is horrible. It hurts. The mental aspect you have to have to keep a smile on your face to go through something like this, I don't know how I'm doing it," Mody said.